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Download (.docx) Il teatro cartesiano: sulla funzione della "teatralità" barocca nella Prima Meditazione di Descartes
by Simone Guidi
In M. Gatto, L. Viglialoro (eds), "L'esperienza dell'arte", Galaad Edizioni 2011, pp. 21-55.
A Neo-Baroque Tale of Jesuits in Space: Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow (1996)
Published in Image [&] Narrative, Vol 13, No 2 (2012): Neo-baroque Today 1
Abstract
In Mary Doria Russell’s award-winning 1996 novel The Sparrow (translated into French in 1998 as... more
Abstract
In Mary Doria Russell’s award-winning 1996 novel The Sparrow (translated into French in 1998 as Le Moineau de Dieu), the Society of Jesus sends a mission of priests and laypeople to the newly discovered planet Rakhat. I argue that the narrative dispositive of The Sparrow justifies designating it as a neo-baroque novel. Russell’s work systematically references the baroque age and her literary techniques provoke in the reader two key effects generally associated with baroque fiction and drama, and specifically with the kind of “science fiction” (in Darko Suvin’s sense) created in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. My goal in this essay is to demonstrate how Russell’s use of techniques of ‘literary anamorphosis’—as described by Gregory de Rocher and Nicolas Corréard—is integral to The Sparrow’s function as a work of “science fiction” that provokes “cognitive estrangement” as defined by Suvin, and to relate these techniques to William Egginton’s notion of minor and major baroque strategies. Like the Lucianesque fictions of Rabelais, Cyrano, Swift and others, Russell’s fiction struggles with major cultural crises of the author’s time—in this case, historiographical polemics in the wake of the 500-year anniversary of Columbus’ landing in the Americas—but does not offer simple solutions or value judgments.
Résumé
Dans le roman de Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow (publié en 1996 et traduit en français en 1998 sous le titre Le Moineau de Dieu), la Société de Jésus envoie des prêtres et des laïcs sur la planète Rakhat, nouvellement découverte. Je souhaite démontrer que le dispositif narratif de The Sparrow autorise de considérer l’œuvre comme un roman néo-baroque. Outre que le texte de Russell abonde en références à l’âge baroque, ses procédés narratifs suscitent deux effets-clés chez le lecteur, grâce à des techniques qu’on associe généralement à la fiction et au théâtre baroques, et surtout la « science-fiction » (selon la définition de Darko Suvin) écrite aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles. Mon principal objectif est de montrer comment Russell dans son roman met en jeu l’anamorphose, telle que la définissent Gregory de Rocher et Nicolas Corréard. Ce procédé est indissociablement lié aux aspects « science-fictionnels » de l’œuvre, autant d’éléments qui incitent le lecteur à la « distanciation cognitive » (pour reprendre le terme de Suvin). Enfin, j’esquisserai une relation entre ces procédés et les stratégies baroques « majeure » et « mineure » décrites par William Egginton. Comme les fictions lucianesques de Rabelais, Cyrano et Swift parmi d’autres, l’œuvre de Russell affronte de grandes crises d’actualité; dans le cas de The Sparrow, il s’agit des controverses entourant le cinq-centième anniversaire de l’arrivée de Christophe Colomb aux Amériques. Pourtant, face à ce débat, le roman n’offre aucune solution simple ni jugement de valeur sans ambiguïté.
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``Guileful Deception of Sense'': Semantic Fields and Sor Juana's Baroque Poetry
In "Approaches to Teaching the Works of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz." Stacey Schlau and Emily Bergmann, eds. New York: Modern Language Association, 2007.
Teatro barroco de jesuitas alemanes: "El amor parricida", de Franz Lang
En colaboración con Vïctor Rondón
Onomazein 11 (2005): 177-200.
Ikonografie uzavřené společnosti – Obrazový cyklus znesvěcení hostií Židy z Hostouně / An Iconography of a Closed Society - The Picture Series of the desecration of the Holy Hosts by the Jews from Hostouň (Hostau)
Minulostí západočeského kraje. Archiv města Plzně, Plzeň 2011, s. 108-131.
The study analyses a series of six paintings from the early 17th century depicting the legend about the Jews from... more
The study analyses a series of six paintings from the early 17th century depicting the legend about the Jews from Hostouň and Bernartice, who allegedly should have desecrated seven Holy Hosts and who were consequently burnt to death in punishment for the sacrilege. Side by side with the story itself, the pictures depict the contemporary urban community and the manorial lords from the Černín family during an Eucharist procession. The picture series can be interpreted as a rather idiosyncratic epitaph of its sponsors - Krystýna Kordula Černín, née of Helmak (+1635) and Protiva Černín of Chudenic (+1634) - who had it embellish the Corpus Christi Chapel in Hostouň, where the crypt for the estate owners had been built. It can also be understood as a testimony to the future generations about the unity of the town and its manorial lords, which defined itself in a severe contrast to the marginalized Jewish community. The function of the latter is prevailingly symbolic, providing a statement against which individual layers of the main-stream society are graining their sense of common group identity. This paper approaches the analysis of the individual paintings from the point of view of Early Modern iconography, explores possible literary models for the pictures‘ theme, and finally characterises it as a model of an ideal, albeit exclusive and closed Early Modern community.
Studie analyzuje cyklus šesti pláten z poč. 17. století zobrazujících legendu o hostouňských a bernartických Židech, kteří měli údajně roku 1427 zhanobit sedm konsekrovaných hostií a být za tuto svatokrádež potrestáni upálením. Kromě příběhu samotného je na obrazech vymalována raně novověká městská komunita a černínská vrchnost v eucharistickém průvodu. Obrazový cyklus je možno interpretovat jednak jako svérázný epitaf zadavatelů obrazu – Kristýny Korduly Černínové rozené z Helmaku (+1635) a Protivy Černína z Chudenic (+1634) pro kapli Božího těla v Hostouni, kde byla zbudována krypta majitelů panství, jednak jako černínský testament budoucím generacím o jednotě města a vrchnosti stojící v ostré opozici proti marginalizované židovské komunitě, jejíž funkce je zde spíše symbolická a funguje jako zástupná glosa formující kolektivní identitu jednotlivých sociálních struktur většinové společnosti.
Studie analyzuje jednotlivá plátna na základě raně novověké sociální ikonografie, zkoumá možné literární předlohy námětu tohoto obrazového cyklu a charakterizuje jej jako model ideální, leč uzavřené raně novověké komunity.
La Madonna della Tenda, una nova obra de l'infant Gabriel de Borbó al Museu de Lleida
Butlletí del Museu de Lleida, 1, 2010, p. 6-8.
Love in the mirror, by G.B. Andreini, bilingual edition/translation (with introduction) by Jon R. Snyder
Toronto: CRRS/Iter, 2009.
The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe, The Toronto Series, 2
Originally published in Paris in 1622, 'Love in the Mirror' (Amor nello specchio) is one of a group of remarkable... more
Originally published in Paris in 1622, 'Love in the Mirror' (Amor nello specchio) is one of a group of remarkable experimental comedies written and staged by Giovan Battista Andreini (1576-1654), Italy's leading Baroque comic playwright. 'Love in the Mirror' tells the story of a passionate love affair between two women in early modern Florence. Loving one another freely, without disguises or masks, Lidia and Florinda triumph over the early modern patriarchal system that defined and regulated gender and sexuality. In the play's final act Andreini, who was renowned in his lifetime as an avant-garde theatrical innovator, adds a memorable and highly Baroque comic twist to this love story.
The volume contains both the text of the play (fully annotated) and, on facing pages, a translation into contemporary English. The introduction offers readers a wide-ranging look at the life and works of Andreini and his family, as well as a discussion of the play's afterlife, including the 1999 film version.
L'estetica del Barocco
Bologna: Il Mulino, 2005 [Portuguese translation 2007]
The Baroque, born in Italy, marks the emergence of the first global aesthetic movement. In an epoch of extraordinary... more
The Baroque, born in Italy, marks the emergence of the first global aesthetic movement. In an epoch of extraordinary scientific and geographic discoveries, as well as of unprecedented social and political changes throughout Europe, new ways of representing and narrating the domains of matter and spirit are developed and disseminated. The Baroque aesthetic constitutes a first attempt to "think" about—and through—this phenomenon, while lacking the support of a true philosophy of art (which will be born only in the eighteenth century). This book examines the principal themes and topics of Baroque aesthetic thought and discourse, which are concerned with artistic experience in the first phase of modernity: conceit, wit, genius, imagination, the fragment, art and illusion, the psychology of art, and the artistic «je ne sais quoi» that eludes definition but offers a way to capture «the immense subtlety of things» (Leibniz) and the mysterious «consonance» (Gracián) between us and them.
Some of the theorists and critics considered here include Baltasar Gracián, Emanuele Tesauro, Sforza Pallavicino, Matteo Peregrini, Marco Boschini, and G.W. Leibniz.
Bodies of Water: the Mediterranean in Italian Baroque Theater
CALIFORNIA ITALIAN STUDIES, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2010). Open-access electronic journal.
In three seventeenth-century comedies by the Italian playwright, poet, actor and 'capocomico' Giovan Battista Andreini... more In three seventeenth-century comedies by the Italian playwright, poet, actor and 'capocomico' Giovan Battista Andreini (1576-1654), the Mediterranean Sea plays an ambiguous role, simultaneously separating and connecting families, peoples, cultures, and empires that are scattered around its shores. In these plays the Mediterranean cannot be thought of in geographical terms—i.e. as an ensemble of bodies of water—but rather as a scene of interaction, a stage upon which distance and difference are affirmed or overcome through dialogue, sometimes with surprising results. Embodied above all in the themes of piracy and slavery, on the one hand, and in the figure of the renegade, on the other, the function of the Mediterranean in La turca (1611), Lo schiavetto (1612), and La sultana (1622) is the subject of this essay.
On Establishing the Basis for the Interpretation of the Works of Marin Marais
by Jose Vazquez
This paper has been presented in several universities and conservatories in Austria, France, Italy, Spain. A synopsis is accessible through the link provided.
The paper - often presented in the form of a lecture demonstration - lays the musicological basis for the... more
The paper - often presented in the form of a lecture demonstration - lays the musicological basis for the interpretation of the works for viola da gamba of Marin Marais. Knowledge of these different aspects of his art are essential, if one is to understand the esthetics behind the works.
Here link:
http://www.orpheon.org/OldSite/Seiten/Documents/MaraisSeminar.htm
http://www.orpheon.org/OldSite/Seiten/Documents/MaraisProgram.htm
“Devil, Converso, Duende: Anamorphosis and the View of Spain in Luis Vélez de Guevara’s El diablo cojuelo.”
by Alicia Zuese
Hispania, 93.4 (2010): 563-574.
Abstract: This essay examines Luis Vélez de Guevara’s El diablo cojuelo through the lens of a scene that other... more Abstract: This essay examines Luis Vélez de Guevara’s El diablo cojuelo through the lens of a scene that other scholars have neglected, in which the title character jumps into a writer’s yawning mouth and is regurgitated. I extend previous approaches to the novel that focus on satire and perspectivism to theorize that Cojuelo’s body and language exemplify and enact anamorphosis, the hidden perspective. This representational tool challenges readers to readjust their spatial, sensory, and cognitive engagement with the text and, by extension, the extra-fictional world. Applying this procedure, Vélez also draws on and reorients baroque Spain’s obsession with scrutiny, including experiences familiar to him such as converso heritage, court patronage, and literary academies. Using theories of vision, perspective, and demonic influence contemporary to Vélez, as well as Federico García Lorca’s “Juego y teoría del duende”, I posit a connection between Cojuelo and duende to investigate the role of supernatural inspiration in the creative process. Through anamorphosis, the text creates an image of Spain that is fragmented socially (in the civitas) and spatially, and the writer’s ingestion and expulsion of Cojuelo is an enactment of Lorca’s duende, in liberating the creative force as it purges the demons haunting Vélez and the nation.